This image comes from the European Space Agency’s Copernicus Programme taken on 10 February at 11:25 NZDT. This before image was chosen to have a similar sun angle to the after image (lris.scinfo.org.nz/layer/497-kaikoura-after-earthq... ), thus minimising differences due to illumination.

Copernicus’ six Sentinel satellites collect comprehensive pictures of our land, ocean, emergency response, atmosphere, security and climate change to understand the health of our planet. Sentinel-2 is a wide-swath, high-resolution, multi-spectral imaging mission. Its optical instrument samples in 13 spectral bands: four bands at 10 metres, six bands at 20 metres and three bands at 60 metres spatial resolution. The imagery you see on this site is derived from the four bands with a spatial resolution of 10m.